The need for leadership and sovereignty in South Africa's digital future

THE question of who data belongs to is a dogged question haunting national leaders of statistics formations in countries.

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Like migration of human beings, data crosses borders in more complex forms and it is the duty of the statistician-general to collate and make sense of the numerical evidence. Digital colonisation will be the battle of statisticians.

Here the statisticians have to put in place a system that enables equity in data exchange. A tough ask at that. Take for instance the International Comparisons Programme (ICP), which enables discovery in the economic sphere of countries. Participation in this transparency that enables movement of goods and services, peoples and pollutants is as complex as it comes.

The world of electronics and virtual systems is upon us. It is a world where transparency and discovery can be easy but privacy can constrain such discovery. Abuse of state power is the biggest enemy and terrifying yet abuse by factions also can harm citizenry.

Fake news is widespread, and the cases of Nkosana Makate, Eldrid Jordaan and Zakes Mda illustrate how virtual platforms can accumulate immense value. Those who sit at the top of this digital value chain often command private reserves surpassing even those of a Reserve Bank Governor. With such resources, they can buy any lawyer, any judge, any priest - and certainly any politician.

Jordaan is therefore correct in arguing that, in this space, fines are ineffective. These institutions effectively print money; penalties hardly make a dent. The only meaningful tools we have are policy and regulation capable of managing their influence.

As long as their power continues to aggregate, fines will remain futile because they can easily monetize around them. It is no surprise that ten men now own $2 trillion of the world's wealth - all concentrated in technology and luxury goods. They even extract value from the R350-per-capita SRD grant through airtime and related micro-transactions. They are sharks, swallowing everything in their path.